HK police disables WWII bomb in downtown

HONG KONG, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong police announced Friday that it has successfully disabled a bomb left in the World War II discovered on Thursday at a construction site on Hong Kong Island, ending a 17-hour cordon off of the surrounding area.

Early this morning a police bomb disposal team managed to dismantle the device -- an AN-M66, which contained 1,000 pounds of explosives. The 2,000-pound bomb is the largest unexploded World War II-era device that has been unearthed in Hong Kong, local police said.

More than 2,000 people were evacuated after the bomb was found by construction workers who were digging an underground hotel structure near the Cosmo Hotel in Happy Valley on Hong Kong Island on Thursday afternoon.